LET ME TRAIN
Disgraced Al Zarooni says 8-year ban too long and pleads for return to racing
DISGRACED former Godolphin trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni has written to BHA chairman Nick Rust appealing for clemency and a return to racing.
Al Zarooni was banned for eight years in April 2013 after admitting administering anabolic steroids to 22 of his horses in British racing’s biggest drugs scandal.
But having served six of those years exiled from the sport, Al Zarooni says he has learned a harsh lesson and is struggling to support his family.
In the letter, Al Zarooni says he has paid a ‘very high price’ for his mistakes and offers to travel from Dubai to London to make a faceto-face appeal to Rust. He also offers to work with the BHA’s charitable, educational or welfare programmes to urge people not to make the same errors he did.
Al Zarooni, 43, speaking exclusively to Sportsmail, said: ‘It was very hard for me to find a job in Dubai. I have spent all the money I earned from prize money in racing. My marriage has been under strain and I am the father of five kids. When you are in this type of situation you are always angry and sad. That affected my family.
‘I am going through a really hard time. I feel like I am someone in a jail — I can’t do anything. All I know is horses.’
Al Zarooni’s case shocked the sport and heaped embarrassment and scrutiny on Sheik Mohammed’s Godolphin empire. Al Zarooni said he is sorry that he blackened the name of Godolphin and the United Arab Emirates. He said working for Godolphin was ‘like a dream’ and he knows he will never work for them again.
He added: ‘I have had zero contact with Sheik Mohammed. I made a mistake and he was angry but I don’t blame him. His Highness never put pressure on me to win and was always supportive. I feel really sorry that I did this to them.’
Al Zarooni has always claimed he administered ethylestrenol and stanozolol for therapeutic reasons rather than with performanceenhancing motives and that the drug rules in Dubai at the time of his case also led to his misunderstanding.
In a fast-track disciplinary process in 2013, seemingly driven more to minimise embarrassment for the sport and Godolphin, news of the positive tests on Al Zarooni’s horses emerged on a Monday evening and he was banned within the week. At the time Rust’s predecessor Paul Bittar was BHA chief executive. Al Zarooni said he was harshly treated compared to other cases he cites in his letter to the BHA including the five years trainer Gerard Butler was banned for in 2013 after nine of his horses tested positive for an anabolic steroid. Al Zarooni added: ‘I thought they
would ban me for four years maximum. Eight years was a shock. I do not disagree that I had to be punished but the length of the ban is like you want to kill someone. We are all human and we should have some mercy.
‘I did make a mistake but I was not trying to cheat. That’s why I think the BHA have to look at my case. I was very honest. I never tried to hide anything. I answered all their questions honestly.
‘I wish to come back as a trainer. I have learned from my mistake. Training horses is in my blood. Maybe someone might offer me a job in any country — the UK, Dubai, US, China or India, anywhere.’
Before his ban, Al Zarooni had been a rising star of the Godolphin operation with his wins including the 2012 St Leger with Encke.
Encke — who denied Aidan O’Brien’s 2,000 Guineas and Derby winner Camelot a win which would have made him the first Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky in 1970 — was one of the Al Zarooni horses which tested positive the following spring, but his race-day test had been clear.
It seems a massive long shot that the BHA will look sympathetically on Al Zarooni’s plea and end his ban early. A BHA spokesman declined to comment.